By THOMAS TIERNEY
Los Alamos

Yesterday’s town-wide power outage reminded Los Alamos how completely modern life depends upon electricity. The lights went out, internet service stopped, electric stovetops went cold, garage doors froze shut, and many residents suddenly lost the ability to prepare a warm meal.

County leaders should keep that reality firmly in mind as they discuss restricting or eliminating natural gas appliances for residential cooking.

Los Alamos experiences recurring power outages. Wind, snow, wildfire mitigation efforts, equipment failures, and grid instability interrupt electrical service often enough that residents plan around the possibility. Most households keep flashlights, backup batteries, and emergency supplies close at hand because experience has taught us to prepare.

Yesterday illustrated a simple truth. Residents with natural gas ranges still boiled water, cooked meals, made coffee, and cared for their families. Residents who relied entirely upon electric cooking appliances lost that capability the moment electricity disappeared.

That difference matters.

Engineers build resilient systems through redundancy and diversity. Strong systems maintain functionality through multiple independent pathways. Concentrating every critical household function onto a single electrical network reduces resilience and increases vulnerability during outages.

Cooking, heating water, communications, refrigeration support systems, and transportation already place substantial demand upon the electric grid. Public policy now pushes additional electrification through vehicle charging and appliance conversion. Each added dependency increases the consequences of losing power.

Natural gas provides an independent energy pathway. During many outages, it continues operating when electrical service fails. That capability strengthens household resilience and supports public safety during emergencies.

The efficiency discussion also deserves careful examination. Advocates for electrification often point out, correctly, that modern induction stoves transfer heat into cookware very efficiently. At the appliance level, induction systems outperform traditional gas burners. Yet electricity does not originate magically inside a kitchen wall outlet. Power plants must first generate it, transmission systems must carry it across long distances, and local infrastructure must distribute it into homes. Every stage introduces energy losses and infrastructure costs.

Natural gas delivered directly into homes bypasses much of that conversion chain. From a full system perspective, direct-use natural gas often competes quite favorably when analysts examine total energy consumption from cradle to grave, including generation losses, transmission losses, infrastructure expansion, backup systems, and grid capacity upgrades required to support large-scale electrification.

Cost matters as well.

Converting homes away from natural gas often requires panel upgrades, rewiring, appliance replacement, and substantial infrastructure modifications. Many families and retirees living on fixed incomes cannot absorb those costs easily. County leaders should also recognize that widespread electrification requires major investment in generation capacity, transmission infrastructure, and grid hardening. Residents ultimately pay those costs through taxes, utility rates, fees, or some combination of all three.

Safety deserves honest discussion, too.

Natural gas systems require proper installation, ventilation, maintenance, and leak monitoring. Carbon monoxide poisoning and gas leaks present real hazards when homeowners neglect safety practices or infrastructure degrades. Responsible public policy should acknowledge those risks openly.

Electric systems, however, also carry risks. Electrical fires, overloaded circuits, utility failures during winter storms, and the growing consequences of grid instability create their own public safety concerns. No energy system operates without risk. Wise engineering minimizes risk through layered resilience, sound maintenance, redundancy, and practical safeguards rather than through absolute dependence upon a single infrastructure network.

Los Alamos contains one of the highest concentrations of scientists, engineers, technical professionals, and emergency planners in the nation. Our community understands the value of resilient design. Robust systems avoid unnecessary single points of failure. Redundancy strengthens reliability. Diversity improves survivability.

Yesterday’s outage offered a clear lesson. When electrical service failed, natural gas continued quietly providing continuity and functionality to many homes across town.

Before county leaders eliminate that capability, they should answer one straightforward question:

If the next outage lasts longer than yesterday’s, how will families cook their food?